No One Tells Everything (14 page)

“Who said that?” she asks.

“Someone named Spinoza.”

“He was a philosopher, right?”

“I don’t know. I copied it from a book. I have a book of famous quotations that I like to flip through.”

“It’s a good one,” she says.

He doesn’t respond.

“Charles?”

“I don’t know what to say,” he says.

“Tell me about your life. I want to try and understand.”

“It’s not that interesting.”

“It is to me. I don’t believe what I read.” She squeezes her hand into a fist, waiting out his pause. “Maybe you can tell me about your family.”

“Okay. I guess I can do that,” he says. “My parents are Kathy, well Katherine, and Charles Raggatt Sr., who I’m named after. People think my mom is pretty nice. Decorating the house is real important to her. She’s kind of a nervous person. She’s always looking around at what other people are doing. She’s tense even when she tries to seem relaxed. I mean, even when it looks like she’s relaxing she never is. She was a beauty queen after high school. She showed me her Miss Ohio sash once. It’s white satin with cursive blue writing. She keeps it folded up in her jewelry box. She likes to say that she didn’t win Miss America but she won a husband, because a friend introduced her to my dad the night of the pageant.”

Charles stops talking. Grace presses her ear into the phone. Someone yells, “Hurry it up, yo!”

“What about your dad?” she asks.

“My dad. Well, um…He’s successful in business. He makes a lot of money. He really likes the Indians. His company has a loge at the stadium every season. When I was young I went with him a few times. I liked the snacks and the big chairs. But I didn’t care about the games so he stopped taking me. He bought me a rowing machine a couple years ago. It just showed up in my room. I guess he wanted me to lose weight. But I never used it.”

“Did you get along with you parents?”

He pauses and sniffles.

“I got along with them okay, I guess. It’s not like we had big fights or anything. My mom didn’t like that I was, I don’t know, different from other kids. She tried to pretend it was going better for me than it was and that it would get better if I tried harder to fit in. My dad gave up on me pretty early on,” he says softly. “I preferred to be by myself. And, I don’t know. He wasn’t mean or anything. We just kind of did our own thing. One time I was having a hard time and I tried to tell him. They never knew how it was.”

Charles sounds listless and monotone.

“Have you seen them since…”

“Did you know I didn’t talk until much later than other kids?” he asks.

“No, I didn’t know that,” she says, smiling to herself.

“It’s not like I couldn’t. I mean, I knew how to talk and sometimes when I was alone, I would talk to myself.”

He is quiet.

“I know it wasn’t how they are saying,” she says.

“I can’t talk about that.”

“That’s okay.”

“I heard someone say one time that people have kids to find themselves. I don’t think my parents liked what they found.”

There is commotion on the other end.

“Charles?”

“But I don’t blame them for how I turned out or anything.”

“Okay,” she says.

“It’s confusing here sometimes. And loud. I’m sorry if I ramble.”

“No, you’re fine. Don’t worry about it.”

Grace strains against his long delay, trying not to jump in and fill the silence.

“So you’re in Ohio?” he asks, momentarily brightened.

“Yeah, for a little while.”

“I haven’t been back there in a long time.”

“It’s spring. The dogwoods are in bloom.”

“I’m allowed to go out a little bit but I don’t. I get two and a half minutes in the shower and I go when everyone else is outside. It’s not like I don’t have plenty to think about.” His voice catches.

“You have a sister, right?” Grace asks.

“I have a little sister. Sweet Caroline, like the song. We get along great. She’s a sophomore in high school. Everybody likes her.”

“Do you two talk?”

“I got a letter from her at the beginning but I haven’t heard from her in a while. It’s a great letter though. She got a new kitten.” His voice trails off.

“Charles?”

“I have to go now.”

“You’ll call again?”

“Goodbye, Grace.”

“Charles,” she says, but the phone is dead.

###

Grace tracks down Hadley Jameson, Charles’s crush from high school, at Ohio State, who sounds genuinely saddened about him and willing to talk about the boy she remembers. Grace drives to Columbus and meets her in front of the McDonald’s in the student union, amidst a throng of kids and fast-food smells. Hadley is the embodiment of perky. Thick, sandy-colored hair pulled back in a bouncy high ponytail, small nose, dimples. She is sporty and girlish in a short denim skirt and it’s easy to imagine her at home in a cheerleading uniform. As she sits, she mouths, “Hi!” with exaggerated excitement to someone who passes behind Grace, and then turns back with rapt attention.

“It is so disturbing,” Hadley says, making her blue eyes big. “My friend Rebecca called me from UVA—her mom had told her—and I totally couldn’t believe it. Not Charles. Well really, not anybody, but Charles? He seemed like such a child in a way. Innocent or something.”

“Were you friends?” Grace asks, curious as to what she’ll say.

“Kind of. I mean we were friendly. He gave me rides home sometimes. I’ve known him since the fifth grade. We met on the bus going to Severance Hall. You’re from Cleveland, right?”

“Cuyahoga. I’m home visiting my parents.”

“Oh, that’s awesome. I love being home. I still get way homesick. I’m going back to Hunter for the summer. To be a lifeguard.”

“Was Charles picked on a lot in school?” Grace asks.

“I don’t think so. Not that I know of. I don’t know what high school was like when you were young, but it really was pretty unified at Hunter.”

Grace passed through four years of high school in a fog of detachment, smoking pot alone in her room, blowing smoke out the window and spraying Love’s Baby Soft to cover it up. She had some casual friends, but she never revealed much. Surface was easy. Especially when everyone else was looking for someone to listen.

“But there were cliques, right?” Grace asks. “Some kids who were outcasts?”

“I don’t know. People were nice to each other. There weren’t, like, bullies or anything.”

“I thought there was some incident with a note,” Grace says.

“Oh. You heard about that? That was a prank that got out of hand. I guess those guys can kind of be jerks. I didn’t know about it until after. I felt bad about it but Charles said it was no big deal.”

Hadley’s face has lost a bit of its life. She bites her lip.

“I assume it wasn’t a big secret that he liked you?” Grace asks.

“Yeah, I knew he liked me, but what was I supposed to do? Stop talking to him? Tell him I wasn’t interested?” Hadley says, with a trace of impatience. She pauses and regroups. “Have you heard about the party he had senior year? His parents threw this over-the-top bash for graduation and invited everybody. They must have spent thousands of dollars on it. There were tables of food everywhere. Caterers running around. A DJ and a dance floor put in on the lawn. Carnival games. The whole thing was so weird and kind of mortifying, especially because it was for Charles. His parents were there greeting people—it looked like they were hired actors, smiling and pretending that their son was popular. The football players were plastered, knocking things over and laughing. No one even talked to Charles. I found him up in his room. That was the last time I saw him. He was really excited about leaving for college, that whole ‘I can’t wait to get out of this town’ thing. He seemed really psyched.”

Grace imagines his unwavering belief that he could start over as someone new.

“I loved high school,” Hadley says. “But I know it isn’t as fun for some people. It’s sad, you know?”

###

By the time Grace arrives home, the day has dipped past dusk and the afterglow of the sun hangs pinkish behind the woods, deepening to blood orange down near the horizon. The house is all lit up.

“Nice of you to join us, Grace,” her mother says, already seated in the dining room.

It is the first time in years that the three of them are sitting down to dinner. Her father is in his head-of-the table spot, still commanding despite his frailty. He has dressed for the occasion in a French blue oxford shirt, and Grace wonders if he fastened the buttons himself.

“Sorry I’m late,” she says. “There was some traffic.”

Her father lifts his drink shakily to his lips and her mother adjusts the napkin in her lap.

“Looking good, Dad,” Grace says.

He smiles and winks at her and there he is, the old charmer whose fickle attentions she has always coveted. His speech is thick and strained.

“Thanks, sweetie,” he says.

She hasn’t heard this from him since she was a child.

The plate in front of her is filled with steak, mashed potatoes, and green beans. There is a wineglass set at her place but she doesn’t fill it. She will go another day. She thinks about Charles, adrift in high school. She wonders what he thinks about for all the hours.

“A celebration dinner,” her mother says. She has lipstick on, and her pearls. “We had a good day today. The therapist says it’ll take some work, but your dad will be as good as new. Back to normal.”

“That’s great,” Grace says, her enthusiasm forced.

Her father picks up his knife and fork and fights to separate a piece of steak. His frustration mounts and his utensils clang against his plate. Her mother nudges her under the table and Grace looks away, taking a bite of potatoes.

He gets a piece of meat free. They eat for a while in silence.

“So, Grace. Are you seeing anyone special these days?” her mother asks.

“No,” she says. “I was for a while. A literature professor from City College. But we broke up.”

Her father chews and stares at her without comment.

“Oh. I’m sorry,” her mother says. “It seems much more difficult nowadays. But you’ll find someone.”

“It’s okay. It’s not my goal in life. I’m not waiting to be completed,” Grace says.

It falls quiet again.

“What were you up to today in Columbus?” her mother asks.

“I have a project I’m working on.”

“For the magazine?”

“No. On my own.”

“What kind of project?” she asks.

“I’m investigating a murder.”

“What? What do you mean?” her mother asks, cocking her head to mask her pained expression.

Her father makes an odd, high-pitched sound like a wheeze and starts coughing.

“Jack!”

“Fine,” he says putting his hand up, regaining his breath. “I’m fine.”

“Because I don’t believe the story about him,” Grace says.

“The murderer?”

“Yes. The kid being charged.”

“Oh, Grace,” her mother says, looking past her out the window. “Why waste your time on someone like that? What are you doing?”

“I don’t think it’s a waste of time,” Grace says. “To help someone.”

“To help someone?”

“To try. To pursue the truth.”

Grace stares at her mother, defiant, even as she fears she is chasing dizzily after something she may never know.

“I don’t understand this, Grace.”

“I talked to him today. The kid who’s accused. So don’t be alarmed if you see collect calls from a New York jail on your phone bill.”

It’s the end of the uneasy peace. Her father spills his water reaching for his bourbon, then can’t make his hand work well enough to right the glass.

“Jack, let me help you,” her mother says.

“Susan, please,” he says. “I’ve got it.”

He sets the glass upright but there is a puddle of water on his plate. He looks at it and then at them.

“Goddamnit all,” he says and pushes away from the table.

He muddles off to the bar, then withdraws to the haven of his den.

Her mother stares at the center of the table.

“More wine, Mom?” Grace asks, picking up the bottle.

“No, thank you,” she says.

So Grace fills her own glass to the rim and drinks it down before she can change her mind. It tastes so good, the familiar promise of solace. She fills her glass again.

“I’m worried about you,” her mother says.

“Don’t be.”

Her mother scrapes the remnants of the plates onto hers but doesn’t get up. She rolls the wine around her glass and takes a sip.

“Mom.”

“Hmm?”

“Why did you put up with him?”

Grace looks steadily at her mother, who twists her necklace around her forefinger.

“I don’t think this is an appropriate conversation,” she says.

“I want to know,” Grace says. “Tell me.”

“Keep your voice down,” her mother says.

But Grace can see the smallest hint of an opening in her tired eyes.

Her mother stacks the plates and stands.

“Mom. Leave it. I’ll do it.”

“No, it’s fine. I’ll do it,” she says.

“I’ll do it!” Grace says, yanking the plates from her. “You don’t always have to do everything. I’ll clean up.”

And for the first time ever, her mother lets her. She sits back down and works the cork back into the bottle.

“Marriage involves a lot of putting up with,” her mother says. “That’s the commitment.”

When dissatisfaction turns to antipathy and then to apathy, Grace thinks.

“Sounds like fun.”

“It’s not like he hasn’t put up with things, too. Who among us is perfect?”

“Not you?” Grace says.

Her mother smiles a little but doesn’t divulge further. She folds her napkin. Grace rises from her chair.

“I thought he might leave me once,” her mother says quietly.

“What?” Grace sets the plates on the table and waits.

“When I was pregnant with Callie. I suspected he was having an affair with one of the secretaries in his office. Janice.”

“I remember her. The flaming red hair.”

Her mother nods.

“But when Callie was born, something changed. I don’t know what it was. She was a good omen. And he came back to us with renewed purpose.” She looks down at her lap and then back up. “And I was always thankful that he did.”